What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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warm-hearted humor, humanizing his characters and offering his audience a break from the heavier material.) Gail, a brusque woman whose "shocking lack of sensitivity" is referenced more than once in the script, is played by UA graduate student Leah Smith, an immensely likable actor who skillfully navigates the tricky waters of a monologue that could make less talented actors unsympathetic. "As an actor, it's crucial that whatever role you are cast in, you do not judge your character," notes Smith. "Gail holds some personal values that do not align with my own, but she also has plenty that do: family, love, strength, hometown pride. Instead of focusing on all the ways this character may be different from me, I've approached this role by highlighting the similarities this woman from the South shares with me and most individuals: familial loss, job insecurity, changing landscapes, fear of the unfamiliar. Gail speaks from a place of passion and honesty because she truly cares about her home and family. Once you can see where someone is coming from, the differences between you seem much more minute." "[Leah and I have] explored how Gail's recent, tragic life circumstances led to her becoming fearful and overly protective of her family, community and country," says Landman. "She'll do anything for them. Leah has embraced the depth of her character's love, as well as her need to survive and protect, and takes action to make that happen." And that, then, is the biggest strength of Walch's script: He humanizes both sides of a controversial issue that pits sister against sister, parent against child, American against American, offering the audience a chance to see beneath the heated political rhetoric to the very real, very vulnerable issues simmering under the surface — something that happens so rarely in our polarizing political world today. "As a writer, I want to keep everyone in the audience in the same room," says Walch. "It's easy to vilify, it's much harder to empathize. For me, this is a play about our response to loss. All the characters, including Gail, are in relationship to catastrophic loss (loss of … immediate family members, job security, faith in our government, community, sense of home). The characters' response to these losses is central to the play as each asks, 'Do I turn inward or outward? Do I close down or open up?' When we encounter 'the other' (whether that be a person, or a concept or a different flavor of ice cream), I believe we all are confronted with this fundamental question: 'Do I push away the unknown or do I embrace it and make room for something new?' I believe this tension is the foundation of our current political debate. I wanted to respectfully dramatize characters on all points of the spectrum, as I'm less interested in the political conversation than I am in the in the human conversation." The award-winning Walch is now serving as the head of the UA MFA Playwriting Program, giving UA students an opportunity to have the playwright on hand as they move through the production process. "I still go through the process of discovering my character, but if there's ever some insight that I am missing or when I was stuck in the timeline of Naomi's backstory, it was great having John there because I could ask him those questions," says actor Taylar Hasberry, who plays the returning soldier. "It is a rarity to have the playwright directly involved in the creative process with you, but it's one that I wish every show had," says Smith. "Once the play is published, it's left up for interpretation by the director, actors and designers. However, by having John Walch on hand, we can be sure that the decisions we are making in this production are honoring his original intent, while also being able to ask permission when to bend the script's boundaries. I feel a great benefit having the one responsible for such a beautiful story directly involved in the end product." Landman says he first met Walch 20 years ago, when he saw production of two of Walch's plays in Austin, Texas. "He's gifted in his ability to poetically explore the deeply personal side-by- side with the global, as well as touch our hearts and minds — and make us laugh! And now, 20 years later, here we are both teaching at the U of A, and I'm delighted to (finally!) have the opportunity to collaborate together." All signs point to the fact that we're in for a contentious election year — and it's just getting started. 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